The present invention relates to a method of and system for generating a help file.
In a computing environment such as a standard desktop office set-up, in which a user will access applications run on an operating system on a desktop personal computer (PC), it is common for assistance to be provided to the user through the application that they are currently using. This is typically provided via the use of help files. An application, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is used to view flies with the .pdf extension, provides a menu option entitled “Help”, which a user can access to obtain assistance in relation to the functions of the application. Such a help function will allow a user to either search by the use of user-chosen keywords, or will provide a series of help pages that are arranged in a logical manner for the user to look through.
Some provision of help functions involve connecting the user remotely to a service that has additional information, which has the advantage of being readily updateable by the application provider, and not tied to the help information stored within the application when it is first sold to the end-user. However all conventional help functions suffer from the problem that user navigation of the help information is frequently complicated and often results in the user being unable to access the relevant information, and that adaptations and improvements to the software application to which the help information relates do not translate into corresponding changes in the help information.
Some improvements to the provision of help files have been proposed. For example, United States of America Patent Application Publication US 2002/0015056 discloses a dynamic help system for a data processing device. The help system has a first generator for dynamically generating a user profile data set. This user profile data set stores, in particular with reference to a time base, help topic data sets and/or the frequency and/or the type of a user's access to utilization functions of a software program. The help system further includes a second generator for generating a user help profile data set. In this user help profile data set, at least selected help topic data sets, or program branches therefor, are stored as a function of the access data recorded in the user profile data set. Based on the user help profile data set, at least one user-specific help start-up page is dynamically generated, which allows for activating the help topic data sets associated with the user help profile data set. This system assists with providing more user-directed help information, but requires the use of user profiles and a learning process which is processor intensive. No solution is provided to the problem of adapting help files to changes in the underlying software application.
A further solution proposed by United States of America Patent Application Publication US 2004/0036715 is a multi-level user help. This document discloses a method for displaying multi-level help for an element of a computer system through creating a hierarchically organized plurality of help levels for the element in which each help level includes an associated help item. The computer system then receives a help activation command for that element from the user and responds by displaying a help item for the element of an initial help level. A user may also edit the help item or create a new help item for one of the plurality of help levels or a new help level. Additionally, each user of the system may edit and create user specific help items, and these help items may be created, edited and implemented “on the fly”. However, as in many systems, user navigation of the help information is still complicated, and no solution is provided to the problem of adapting help files to changes in the underlying software application.
It is therefore an object of the invention to improve upon the known art.